Video: Creating sharp edges with the Crease tool

ZBrush is well-known for making nice, smooth, organic models, but it's certainly not limited to that. You can also create more manufactured looking or hard edge surfaces by adding creasing to your models. So I'm going to start with a very simple model to demonstrate this. I'm going to load up the Poly Sphere which is my favorite starting model. To do this I'm going to press on the Default ZScript button and this is just a shortcut technique to bring up that Poly Sphere. So I get the startup screen, click on Poly Sphere. Immediately it's on the canvas and I'm in Edit mode and here it is. See Edit mode is activated and I can rotate the model. I'm going to go to the Tool palette and click on Geometry and reduce the number of Subdivisions by moving that slider down to one.

Pixologic's ZBrush 3 stands at the forefront of digital 3D sculpting and 2.5D painting, a new medium that is taking the art and entertainment worlds by storm. Visual effects artist Eric Keller shares his expertise and talents in ZBrush 3 for Windows Essential Training. He presents the concepts behind digital sculpting, shows how to produce fantastic images using the unique ZBrush toolset and interface, and demonstrates the power of the Digital Clay and Sculpting brushes. To offer a richer understanding of the application, Eric gives a guided tour of the interface and addresses the most common problems experienced by new users. Exercise files accompany the course.

Creating sharp edges with the Crease tool

ZBrush is well-known for making nice, smooth, organic models, but it'scertainly not limited to that. You can also create more manufactured looking orhard edge surfaces by adding creasing to your models. So I'm going to startwith a very simple model to demonstrate this.I'm going to load up the Poly Sphere which is my favorite starting model. To dothis I'm going to press on the Default ZScript button and this is just ashortcut technique to bring up that Poly Sphere.So I get the startup screen, click on Poly Sphere. Immediately it's on thecanvas and I'm in Edit mode and here it is. See Edit mode is activated and Ican rotate the model. I'm going to go to the Tool palette and click on Geometryand reduce the number of Subdivisions by moving that slider down to one.

I'm going to add a couple of lower levels of Subdivision by clicking onReconstruct Subdivision. So this is like the opposite of dividing the model.It's adding lower levels of Subdivisions. So I'm down to about that level,which is good.Now I turn on Frame mode here, we can see the wire frame drawn on the objectand I'm going to make a couple Polygroups. So let's go to Transform, turn onPoint Selection, so the selection is a bit more accurate and I'm just going topress Ctrl+Shift, drag, release the panel from the tablet, there we go. This iswhat we have now.

Now I go to Polygroups and do Group, there is a -- that changes color. I pressCtrl+Shift, click on the canvas. See I have two Polygroups now. When I make acrease it's going to crease the outside edge of whatever is visible on the canvas.So to hide this part of the model, I just Ctrl+Shift+Click on my Polygroup.There we go. I'm going to zoom-in here and I'm going to click on the Creasebutton. When I do that, you see a slight change to the shape or moreimportantly you also see a little dotted line here, you have to zoom-in veryclosely to see this.

This dotted line indicates that there is a crease now on this edge. So when Ipress F to center the model, Ctrl+Shift, so I can see the whole model and thisis little bit more obvious with Frame mode off. So I'm going to turn Frame modeoff and increase the Subdivisions on the model and there we see a nice hardedge has been created on that Polygroup. Thanks to the creasing.I'm going to go through the process one more time. So let's turn Frame modeback on. Let's make another Polygroup. Let's say we are going to do this arearight area. So Ctrl+Shift+Drag then release. I have this area right here. Justto make it slightly more interesting, let's remove this middle section here too.

So Ctrl+Shift+Drag over here, release the Shift key and let go. Now I'm goingto make a Polygroup. To make a crease on a model you don't need to makepolygroups, but I find it's a good idea. Makes it a little bit more easy towork with, especially if you had to go back and change something about the model.Press that Crease button and our crease is now applied to this polygroup.Ctrl+Shift+Click, you can see that the model has been slightly changed in itsshape but it's much more obvious, once I increase that Subdivision level. Turnoff Frame button. You can really see it there.

I bring this down again. I'm going to turn on Frame mode and isolate this groupagain by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Click on it. Now it's isolated and to remove thatcrease, I just press Uncrease. Ctrl+ Shift+Click, increase the Subdivisions.Turn off Frame mode and we are back to where we were before. There is a littlebit of residual crease there. We can get rid of this by choosing the Smoothbrush from the Brush library. Reduce the intensity and just paint over tosmooth out that area.

So it doesn't perfectly remove that crease but it does a pretty good job. Butthat's a good way to get started. If you want to make some kind of hard surfacemodel like a piece of armor or some kind of product or something like that,this is a really good technique for making more of a manufactured look and lessof an organic look.

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Learn by watching, listening, and doing, Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along Premium memberships include access to all exercise files in the library.

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Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
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